Sylvester Stallone Starred In This '70s Sci-Fi Cult Classic That Spawned A Franchise

Long before "Rocky," "Rambo," or a '90s sci-fi movie that predicted the future with terrifying accuracy, one of Sylvester Stallone's first major roles was in a 1975 film about fast cars, machine guns, and a violent cross-country race. That film is "Death Race 2000," and it's set in a dystopian future — the year 2000, hence the title — where drivers enter a race to see who can kill more people than the other drivers to win. This apocalyptic trope also played out in other 1975 movies such as "Rollerball" and "The Ultimate Warrior."

"Death Race 2000" features Stallone as Joe "Machine Gun" Viterbo, who must compete against other racers, including Frankenstein (played by David Carradine). This race is the 20th running of the Transcontinental Road Race, and the action is a show for the masses. It's like Netflix and kill, except the movie is currently streaming on Prime Video. The movie did quite well at the box office earning  $5.1 million against a budget that was estimated to be $300,000. The movie later spawned a series of sequels, just like another one of Sylvester Stallone's epic action movie franchises.

"Death Race 2000" was rated R for its violence, gore, and murder, and one viewer on Rotten Tomatoes summed up the film by saying it was "impossible to defend but easy to enjoy." Another viewer commented on Reddit that this movie is "gratuitous in its violence." When film critic Roger Ebert reviewed "Death Race 2000" in April 1975, he claimed that half the theater's audience was children, and he said: "I was torn between walking out immediately and staying to witness a spectacle more dismaying than anything on the screen: the way small children were digging gratuitous bloodshed." It seems kids of the late '70s enjoyed it, but the film reviewer did not find it to his liking.

Despite that kind of review, the film was very successful. If you're up for a B-movie on a Friday night and you're a fan of early Sylvester Stallone movies, perhaps you would enjoy "Death Race 2000." And more than 30 years later, it spawned a line of prequels and sequels. As the films went on, each had a rotating cast with only a few familiar characters showing up in future iterations, and while Carradine did return as the voice of Frankenstein, Stallone never returned to the franchise.

The original 1975 film led to the production of five additional movies, bringing the total in the series to six films. While this might not be as many films as the "Fast & Furious" franchise, it does feature some familiar faces from that world. The second film is 2008's "Death Race," which served as a reboot of the series, and it stars Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson (both Fast & Furious alums). The plot is similar yet markedly different with racers still fighting for their lives, but instead of killing pedestrians to win, they must survive their race. There are deadly traps and cars equipped with weapons as drivers attempt to kill other competitor while racing. Winning the race is a step towards freedom as each driver is a criminal.

"Death Race 2" came out in 2010 as origin story of the first Frankenstein car driver, Carl Lucas, while 2013's "Death Race 3: Inferno" follows Frankenstein as he competes in another death race where he is one win away from freedom. Released in 2017, "Death Race 2050" is set 50 years after "Death Race 2000," and it brings back the original plot about running down pedestrians for points. Finally, "Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy" was released in 2018, and it was about an agent trying to stop the death race and bring down Frankenstein.